I agree with everything said so far. He is the reason I still watch wrestling, I can say with 100% certainty if he wasn't around on the indies through 2005-2007 I would have lost interest and stopped following it. Such sad news!

One of the greatest in-ring resumes of all-time. Headlined the highest grossing WrestleMania of all-time when he effectively "retired" (noting, he was done as a performer two years ago, despite the small comeback effort)...its since been surpassed, but after you've reached that mountain top, you've essentially done it all.

He can stay at home with his hot af wife, be an ambassador for the WWE and still make bank. The man won life.

The only time I saw him wrestle live was at WrestleMania 29 where Team Hell No defended the WWE Tag Team Titles against Dolph Ziggler & Big E. Obviously nowhere near one of his best matches, but at least I saw him live once.

If it does come off as legit, I might cry tonight. Living in the Detroit area, I have been watching this guy for well over a decade. I have watched him wrestle in Joe Louis Arena and the Taylor Town Center in front of twenty people. I never saw him not be the consummate professional, no matter what the environment.

Daniel Bryan is, hands down, one of the best ambassadors of wrestling in my life time. He simply is Pro Wrestling.

DETROIT_KEJB wrote:If it does come off as legit, I might cry tonight. Living in the Detroit area, I have been watching this guy for well over a decade. I have watched him wrestle in Joe Louis Arena and the Taylor Town Center in front of twenty people. I never saw him not be the consummate professional, no matter what the environment.

Daniel Bryan is, hands down, one of the best ambassadors of wrestling in my life time. He simply is Pro Wrestling.

I really am not ready for this to happen.

Yep, I'm almost certain I will!

And how about this... I picked a random match to watch from his ROH days, didn't put much thought into it (as I will be watching them all night now I expect) For the first one I picked Vs Sydal from Death Before Dishonor Night 1 2007, The context of the match is it's just after that multi man match (8 man tag?) for $10,000 to the winning side, Bryan's team won and Sydal wants his share. Bryan says "wrestlers don't get retirement funds, I'm investing it for us both so when we retire we'll have something" I hope he's still got it! (I just thought it was a funny coincidence)

I can go into more detail if anyone is all that interested, but I thought I would point out some misconceptions/mistakes being reported as the gospel.

It has been reported that:

a) Danielson tried to give notice, but was not allowed.

It is not uncommon for employees who sign contracts to not be allowed to terminate a contract mid term. In fact, that is standard operating procedure. Also, not uncommon that the employer have the ability to release an employee, either for cause or with proper notice. So, by refusing Danielson's 'notice', WWE really just declined to release him. This is not unfair in any way, as Danielson gets paid according to the contract. This does not mean he has to wrestle or work for WWE the whole time, but if they don't breach the contract, it also means he can't just quit and go somewhere else.

b) WWE can keep Danielson's contract frozen forever

This is the biggest error being reported. Very disappointing to hear Meltzer report this as fact and usually smart people like Bixenspan do so as well. There is a lesson here that when these guys talk about legal issues, they are just wrestling fans with no special knowledge or insight.

Section 10.2(b) of what appears to be the standard WWE contract (http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/ ... eement.htm) contains a clause that says whenever a wrestler is unable to wrestle for six weeks or longer, WWE may 1. Terminate the contract; 2. Suspend with or without pay; or, 3. Extend the contract term for a period equal to the entire period of the inability to wrestle.

This does NOT mean they can 'freeze' a contract in perpetuity. While the wording is indelicate, they would not be able to extend the contract for longer than the period of the term the wrestler could not wrestle. For example, if a wrestler could not compete for one year of a three year contract, the term could be extended for a 4th year. It DOES NOT mean that if someone is injured in the middle of a three year contract, is unable to wrestle for five years, and then tries to come back that WWE can extend the term for five years. Contractually, they can extend the contract for the period of the term missed by injury, and such time period is discernible at the time of the conclusion of the original term.

Now, this makes no comment on how enforceable such a clause is as courts look unfavourably upon unilaterally extending contracts beyond their stated length.

c) The effect of retirement

By retiring, Danielson CANNOT just unretire and go somewhere else. I've seen this on Twitter and is just silly, but there are some issues at play which have not been considered. By retiring, Danielson MAY be putting himself in a different position contractually. The contract is silent as to the effect of retirement, but it may alter the 'freezing' of the contract and limit the amount of time which WWE can add to the term (assuming the enfirceability of that clause at all).

Ok...that was not as brief as I intended, but hopefully enlightening to anyone who cares about such things.

rovert wrote:Will probably take a while to set in but this is kind of an end to a certain era and an era that was most formative to me as a smart fan. Sinclair buying ROH, CM Punk retiring from Pro Wrestling and now this.

Also this has been such a slowly evolving story that it isn't as much of a shock as Edge's retirement was. Has been an inevitably for nearly a year.

wac wrote:He almost singlehandedly revived my passion for wrestling after a long time away from it. This is a sad day.

Same with me. Came back to watching wrestling regularly the year he got hot towards WM XXX. Never got to see him wrestler live. I actually bought tickets to see Fight of the Century (Danielson vs Joe) but I couldn't call out of my high school job cause I was the manager. I gave my dad and my younger brother the tickets and they loved the show. My brother says it's the greatest match he's ever saw in person and my dad (who's an old school WWWF guy) said the match was a really good old school 60 minutes match. Even though I bought the DVD later, I still regret not seeing him live as one of last traveling World Champs.

If he becomes the official Ambassador for WWE, I hope he sticks in that role cause it's been snakebitten as of late (Warrior and Hogan).

Bix wrote:So to be clear: If wrestler X is injured 18 months into a 3 year contract, WWE can only extend the contract up to 18 months?

That is the way the contract reads. An alternative, and also hard to enforce, way of reading the clause is that they can extend the term until the injury is healed, though that would be pointless from WWE's perspective. The idea they can just 'pause' a contract and extend it as long as they want if someone is injured is legally ridiculous.

Bix wrote:So to be clear: If wrestler X is injured 18 months into a 3 year contract, WWE can only extend the contract up to 18 months?

That is the way the contract reads. An alternative, and also hard to enforce, way of reading the clause is that they can extend the term until the injury is healed, though that would be pointless from WWE's perspective. The idea they can just 'pause' a contract and extend it as long as they want if someone is injured is legally ridiculous.

Though "what would hold up under legal scrutiny" and "what WWE is willing to put in a contract" are two different things.

True. However, judging from the Mysterio situation last year, WWE seems to take the "you're out a year, we add a year" interpretation, which is how that clause reads logically. There is no wording suggesting they can 'freeze' the contract.

If you want to be entirely certain, contact someone versed in Conneticut state law as that is the agreed law of the contract, but unless they have absolutely insane contract laws, I would bet the above interpretation is pretty accurate.